JR Ewing
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Posts posted by JR Ewing
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At this point, I would take almost anything to reduce/eliminate the profound Toronto-centric nature of hockey coverage across the Dominion (not that such a thing would be assured by this move)...
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TORONTO, ON — The NHL is growing, that much is clear. Technically, we’re now at 33 franchises; one of them just happens to be inactive. But beyond the product on the ice, the broadcast game is also evolving north of the border.
Multiple sources have confirmed that Amazon has retained the Canadian broadcast rights from Rogers to air Monday Night Hockey on their platform during the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons, the remaining two years of Rogers’ current 12-year agreement.
Financial terms are not known, though Rogers’ deal with the NHL was for $5.2 billion.
Amazon has long expressed interest in expanding its NHL footprint and sources have confirmed they already started planning how their broadcasts will shape up next season, though talent has not yet been considered. They have first dipped their toe in League waters with its AWS/NHL partnership as the League’s Official Cloud Infrastructure Provider. Amazon also produced “All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs.”
Bell, which previously owned the national NHL rights in Canada before Rogers swooped in, had dipped their toe in the waters and had conversations about retaining partial rights, again. Bell owns TSN and RDS. There is a possibility they re-engage in a year’s time when the full Canadian rights deal nears its expiration.
The idea is for Rogers and Amazon to piggyback off ESPN and TNT’s formats, and splitting/sharing the national broadcast rights will be the goal for 2026-27 and beyond.
Though some logistical items with the NHL are still being finalized, Amazon has already commissioned a documentary-style behind-the-scenes show featuring a dozen “main cast” NHLers, believed to include William Nylander, Leon Draisaitl, Quinn Hughes and David Pastrnak. There will be additional NHL player appearances throughout the series beyond the primary individuals, however, with Jeremy Swayman entering the Pastaverse in some form.
The production company that created “F1: Drive to Survive” is putting this program together – and that, by itself, is very exciting.
Amazon’s strategy is complimenting its live game broadcasts with supplementary content, such as this new BTS documentary, and I suspect they will look to build off that with more. Come for the game, stay for the content.
It is unclear how fans will react to another sport moving part of its national broadcasts to a streaming network, but we will hear more about Amazon’s new venture into the Canadian NHL broadcast rights in the near future.
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Notes in point-form...
-Just one game, but Kopitar seemed just a hair slow at times. Might age be catching up with him? Keeping up with 97 and 29 in their prime is a tough gig at 36.
-In general, seemed like LA was not playing their game. Some end of game yelling from Doughty…
-Don’t recall too many games where Danault gets carved up like that. He's so good defensively.
-Fully expect a much different Kings club tonight.
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So, Klim Kostin still maintains a home in Edmonton and was at the game on Monday night, wearing his Oilers jersey in the stands. I can't think of another time that an active player of another NHL team attended the game of his former team wearing that former team's jersey.
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Canucks got PDO'd last night. High Danger Chances were 14-7 for Vancouver, but lose 4-1. Happens.
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22 minutes ago, mommax3 said:
It is a struggle being a coach or player in Boston. Fans are some of the most passionate and brutal you'll find anywhere.
Try being a Maple Leaf. The fans and team quite literally drove Frank Mahovlich to be hospitalised from a nervous breakdown. There are other major league sports in Toronto, but none that a large number really care about, so the Leaves get all of the attention, good and bad.
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Just now, ctid said:
But if we want high end talent, we need to take some risks and buy "low" otherwise we will only get it by drafting in the top 5 or get extremely lucky to find a Kucherov in the 2nd round.
Agreed.
Just now, ctid said:I just don't see how we can acquire this by not drafting in the top 5. That's why I personally would be willing to take the risk with Zegras. But he's not gonna come cheap, and Frost will probably be part of that trade (+ alot more) which would be difficult to swallow. I'm a big fan of Frost and would hate to see him go.
For me, the Ducks would surely want too much to make the trade worth it. If he were to come at a relative giveaway price, it would be interesting but, either way, Tortorella would likely have him benched within weeks.
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8 minutes ago, ctid said:
Agreed. But my argument regarding his age is that I believe there is alot more to his production ceiling. We've been screaming for a high end playmaker to dish out to all of our shoot first wingers...so no doubt his deficiencies in the defensive end and a bad +/- rating must be outweighed against the assists he will rack up and helping to realise the goal scoring potential of the tippets, konecnys, farabees, foersters, Brinks, michkovs.
I may be wrong, but I'm betting that he has 80-90 points in him in the right setting.
I certainly can't predict the future either, but I'll say that with regard to offense (and that's the only reason to have Zegras around) players peak much sooner than a lot of people think:
https://hockeyviz.com/txt/age22
Not every player develops at the same rate and at the same ages, but Zegras is the point of his career when we can begin to expect less and less growth, scoring-wise. We'll have to see how it goes with him.
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3 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:
Noone complains when McDavid did it last night I won't complain when he does it then if he is helping the team when.
Torts and coaches made Risto look serviceable so maybe he can do the same with Trevor if he ever is a Flyer.
Connor McDavid was on for the fewest scoring chances against of any Oiler last night all while driving enough offense to get 5 points. You're right; nobody was complaining about him last night.
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4 minutes ago, ctid said:
I like him and I want him. I understand the arguments against him and see the points. But for me his offensive skill set outweighs his deficiencies in the 200ft game.
We've all talked about acquiring high end talent, and needing elite offensive skill set. This guy has that, yes he's not perfect. But we have enough 200ft guys and we will continue drafting more 200ft guys/wingers. It's so so difficult to acquire that 1C with elite offense and here is a guy who is acquirable with two 65point seasons and is what 23/24? We have to be realistic, who is out there at that age with that elite offensive skill set that we can get or draft? I don't see anything feasible or realistic. So to me, if a guy like Zegras is available, you ask and really consider it. Obviously without doing a completely idiotic trade package.
60 points was terrific during the Dead Puck Era, but today, it's puts you something like 100th in scoring. Not elite.
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25 minutes ago, radoran said:
To the ones that do, just want until you see him play "defence".
Yup. It's not necessary for every forward to play Selke-level defense, but they do need to show some sort of attention to it.
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9 minutes ago, Brewin Flames said:
Out for at least game # 2 if not longer.
That's a shame. Always hate to see guys get hurt.
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https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/canucks-demko-injured-questionable-for-rest-of-series/
Vancouver Canucks star goaltender Thatcher Demko has an injury and is questionable for the rest of the series against the Nashville Predators, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reported on Tuesday.
The two-time All-Star returned in the final week of the regular season from a knee injury he suffered on March 9. He played two games and then made 20 saves in the Canucks' series-opening 4-2 win over the Predators on Sunday.
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Well, 7-4 EDM after all is said and done. Hyman with a hat trick, McDavid with 5 points and then Kings with two of the flukiest goals you'll see in your life at the end of the game.
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4-2 with 40 minutes in the bank. Kings had a better period than the 1st, but they're still down by a pair.
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Strong 1st for the Oilers. 2-0
Adam Henrique went juuuuuuuust a little while between playoff goals.
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I thought that Matthews was terrific for the Leafs tonight, impacting at each end of the arena.
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9 hours ago, SaucyJack said:
P.S. The article also explains where ‘Canada’ aka ‘Kanata’ comes from. Who knew? (In USA anyhoo…)
About 30 years ago, you could hardly turn on the TV in this country without seeing a Heritage Minute during ad breaks, and how Canada got its name was one of the videos they made:
There were also several hockey-related videos filmed, covering things like Jacques Plante introducing the goalie mask to the NHL, the Winnipeg Falcons winning the first Gold Medal awarded at the Winter Olympics, Rocket Richard, etc.
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3 minutes ago, SaucyJack said:
I’m aware that ’Winnipeg White’ is a crowd tradition up there…would the NHL allow the Jets players to also don white jerseys (and the visitors dark) against convention?
Doesn’t make full sense to me, as it stands.
I get what you mean. It's a left-over from the days that the home team wore white.
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I think that puck crossed the line.
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I will say this... I don't think the Rangers are as good as a lot of people give them credit for. They play in a division with only one other team that's good. They had middling xGoals%, Scoring Chance% and High Danger%... We don't generally define the best teams as the ones who give up more (and better) scoring chances than their opponent.
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2 hours ago, tucson83 said:
this is a rebuild, to you you have to tank to rebuild and yet you learned nothing from buffalo, ottawa, phoenix, never ending making the playoffs and the toronto maple leafs with their top 5 superstars cant beat the boston bruins, that have no top 5 guys. it doesnt sound like it's about winning cups, it's about getting superstars and not care if they crap the bed like matthews.
Buffalo - the rebuild has featured an unending litany of rookie GMs who make rookie mistakes over and over again. They are a great example of why I didn't consider Briere to be the strongest possible bet for GM of the Philly rebuild. You don't train ship captains by making sure that their first voyage is in a typhoon.
Ottawa - had a terrible owner who interfered at every level. He died in 2022, and the team has only been sold to a new owner less than a year ago.
Phoenix - the very definition of the worst sort of ownership possible. They've been reaching the cap floor by taking on LTIR contracts and have been forced to pre-pay for hotels and flights. Competing hasn't possible, regardless of rebuilds.
Toronto - strong team, but the rebuild was hampered by mostly drafting wingers, and then Kyle Dubas signing John Tavares to his massive deal. Dubas was forced to move quality depth pieces (like Nazem Kadri) on value contracts, and the team has been trying to plug those holes since that time.
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1 hour ago, Buffalo Rick said:
Quite a stretch to say they are the worst. I’m They did play well at times this year. I would not say they are the worst in all those years? The Islanders don’t deserve to be in . I wouldn’t say they are any better? Does it matter? Both will be gone in first round.
No, I'll stand by that. The Isles were bad, but their goal differential was "only" -17. Both are weak playoff teams, but you have to go back decades to find a team in the playoffs that gave up so much more than they got, and there's a linear relationship between goal differential and winning.
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Who's Online 8 Members, 1 Anonymous, 43 Guests (See full list)
Coyotes on the move?
in Around the NHL
Posted
The funny thing is that Meruelo isn't even the worst owner in the league's history.